321–330 of 343 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nonsense. No one's going to use lithium ion batteries for this use case.
Right. It's one of the common anti-renewable canards that batteries would be used for more than diurnal smoothing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It also has a tendency to leak. But I mean, that has to be a limitation of current technology, right? There has to be engineering solutions that we can devise to make it as safe statistically as for example gasoline transport?
No, it's not just a matter of technology, or at least not in ways that are readily addressable. Hydrogen molecules are so small that the simply pass through solid matter as if it were loose-weave cloth. Worse, it embrittles most metals. And the leaked gas, especially if in an enclosed space, is flammable or explosive over a very wide range of concentrations. Long-term storage, transport, and use, at scale, is hugely…
So just have a small fan that constantly flows air around the container to remove all the leaked gas? They do it with heat from the batteries in EVs (which if heat up too much can explode). What is such a big deal?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's not just a matter of technology, or at least not in ways that are readily addressable. Hydrogen molecules are so small that the simply pass through solid matter as if it were loose-weave cloth. Worse, it embrittles most metals. And the leaked gas, especially if in an enclosed space, is flammable or explosive over a very wide range of concentrations. Long-term storage, transport, and use, at scale, is hugely…
If you have cheap enough energy that you're making hydrogen, can't you also make hydrocarbons? Granted, at the efficiencies we're talking, their only real use would be air travel (and petrochemicals, I suppose).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're off by a factor of 10 based on wages for cleaners in Pakistan which is about $1/hr. http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=164&loct...
Using the average number from that source you get 356,000 PKR yearly * 30 people = ~$64,000, even using the low end from that site is only a factor of 2 off not 10. The numbers were actually based of the high end from above in the chain "for one laborer to clean panels is probably about $250-300 a month (USD equivalent, in rupees) in that area. That would be a good wage compared to construction work or farm work in t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remind me but there is also no way to make new helium. It’s not a renewable, is it? I thought it was only available as a byproduct of natural gas collection.
If we ever figure out fusion, some forms of fusion result in helium.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Issue is that water has 2 hydrogens and methane has 4, so typically it is produced by using methane. It’s not really about that, we don’t lack water or methane. The issue is rather about the energy required to produce given amount of hydrogen. Electrolysis requires 2-3 as much energy as steam methane reforming already if you just look at energy of chemical reactions, and moreover, steam reforming requires just heat,…
1. Electricity is getting cheaper all the time. The cheapest forms, wind and solar, involve no detour through heat. Anything that uses electricity instead of something that produces CO2 is a big net win. 2. Huge efficiency gains are to be had, in electrolysis, via catalytic action, needing only transition from lab to production funded by sufficient demand for the hydrogen. 3. There has been great success with direct…
Hydrogen has an efficiency problem. You need to convert other forms of energy to hydrogen at a loss. Then you need to store it and transport it, which is costly and may impose quite some energy cost for cooling or compression. Then you need to convert it back to electricity, also at a loss. If you start at electricity, the electrical grid and batteries would be much more efficient. If you start at oil or gas, you cou…
Many of the things you're saying aren't correct, see my other comment (sibling to yours) for references. Nuclear is not cheap compared to photovoltaics, wind and hydro. Since the former two are bursty, overcapacity in them leads to cheap excess energy at times, which needs to be stored. Which storage method is the best depends on multiple factors, particularly on the duration of storage, capacity required and frequen…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amen. Not just bad faith; ignorant, myopic and ahistorical. > this sounds like a traditional government project problem -- susceptibility to corruption, vanity, hubris etc. said the person on a web forum (the web comes from CERN, a gov project) over the internet (the internet comes from DARPA, a gov project) on a computer (ever heard of the ENIAC? a gov project) Tech bros mouthing off off-topicly about the government…
> Amen. Not just bad faith; ignorant, myopic and ahistorical. Referring to GP's wikipedia reference, can you explain the two 'for unknown reasons' on a) why the original (Canadian) contract was not engaged, and b) the Turkish project was not engaged. What precisely was ashistorical about any of my post? > > this sounds like a traditional government project problem -- susceptibility to corruption, vanity, hubris etc.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many of the things you're saying aren't correct, see my other comment (sibling to yours) for references. Nuclear is not cheap compared to photovoltaics, wind and hydro. Since the former two are bursty, overcapacity in them leads to cheap excess energy at times, which needs to be stored. Which storage method is the best depends on multiple factors, particularly on the duration of storage, capacity required and frequen…
My favorite longshot in that direction is lifting carefully-shaped slobs of stone [0] up and down. [0] https://omegataupodcast.net/299-gravity-storage/
Hydrogen has an efficiency problem. You need to convert other forms of energy to hydrogen at a loss. Then you need to store it and transport it, which is costly and may impose quite some energy cost for cooling or compression. Then you need to convert it back to electricity, also at a loss. If you start at electricity, the electrical grid and batteries would be much more efficient. If you start at oil or gas, you cou…
Batteries don't have a rare earth metal problem, they have a normal metal problem. You need a lot of raw materials to make them, and it's plausible that this will never scale to point where everything can run on batteries.